The 2024 Summer Olympic Games started on the 26th of July in Paris. 206 countries and more than ten thousand athletes are taking part. In total, there are 43 different disciplines but some of them come from the same sport. If we say that one international federation (like FIFA for football) represents one sport, there are actually only 32 sports at these Olympic Games. For example, cycling is represented by only one international federation, the UCI. But for this sport, four disciplines are on the program: BMX, mountain biking, track cycling, and road cycling. And for each discipline, different trials can be present. For example, for athleticism there are a lot of trials: jumping (height, length, pole vault, triple sault), running (many different distances), walking (two different distances), and throwing (shot-put, javelin throw, disc throw, and hammer throw). Some disciplines are divided into totally different trials, like athleticism, and some are divided depending on the weight or the size of participants, like judo or boxing. Finally, there are a lot more than 43 trials. If we also count the women’s and men’s disciplines (and mixed too) as different trials, there are in total 329 of them planned. Now let’s talk about different sports. 

For each edition, there are some sports imposed by the International Olympic Committee and additional ones which are chosen by the hosting country. For this edition, four additional sports were chosen: surfing, climbing, skateboarding, and breakdancing. Among them, breakdance is totally new and it’s the first time that it’s been represented in Olympic Games. The other three were already present in some of the previous Olympic Games. Breakdancing is a style of street dance that comes from New York. The dancers perform figures to mostly hip-hop music. 

The IOC selects compulsory sports according to certain criteria: the most important one is universality. The sport needs to be practiced, at least, on three continents and in 35 countries for women and 50 for men. Also, the sport needs to be represented by a federation which is a member of the IOC. But some sports which meet all these criteria are not represented in the Olympic Games. This is the case for mechanical sports (Formula 1 or MotoGP), some team sports like cricket, squash, baseball, or American football, skill sports like pool, and some nature sports like trail or paragliding. The traditional Olympic sports present since the beginning of the modern Olympic Games (first edition in Athens in 1896) are athleticism, gymnastics, fencing, wrestling, rowing, swimming, equitation, and sport shooting.  

To finish, this is the list of disciplines present at the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris: athletics, rowing, badminton, 5-a-side basketball, 3×3 basketball, boxing, breakdance, canoeing-kayaking road race, canoeing-kayaking slalom, BMX, mountain biking, track cycling, road cycling, horse riding, climbing, fencing, soccer, golf, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline, weightlifting, handball, field hockey, judo, wrestling, swimming, artistic swimming, diving, water polo, modern pentathlon, rugby sevens, skateboarding, surfing, taekwondo, tennis, table tennis, shooting, archery, triathlon, sailing, beach volleyball, volleyball. What is your favorite? If you don’t have one I encourage you to watch the Olympic Games this summer, maybe you’ll discover a new passion. 

Augustin Magaud 

Sources:

Wikipedia.fr – Jeux olympiques d’été de 2024

Ouest-France.fr – Disciplines olympiques des JO de Paris 2024

Wikipedia.org – Breakdancing